We’re in the home stretch of the submissions process for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. With one week to go until the official deadline, we currently have 52 entries – which, to use past years as a yardstick, means we probably have about three-quarters of the final field confirmed. Of course, it’s at this stage that you fall way behind if you turn your back for a day or two, so I’ve got a lot of submissions to catch up on.

First, though, arguably the biggest news in the category over the past few days concerns a film that wasn’t entered. For weeks now, I’d been receiving correspondence about Indian festival hit “The Lunchbox” that implied its selection for the Oscar race was a fait accompli. The romantic comedy, in which a mistaken lunch delivery unites a lonely widower and an unhappy housewife, had everything going for it: a warm critical reception at Cannes and Toronto, crossover audience appeal and a US distribution deal with Sony Pictures Classics.

The Film Federation of India, however, saw things differently, instead submitting multi-stranded drama “The Good Road,” which won Best Gujarati Film at the country’s National Film Awards. The makers of “The Lunchbox” have been quick to voice their outrage at the perceived slight, as have many others. Not having seen either film yet, I can only voice my surprise, but perhaps the Indian selectors are thinking strategically: “The Good Road,” in which a single highway connects the fates of a put-upon truck driver, a middle-class family and a young girl searching for her grandmother, may have its own Academy-friendly merits. Fairly or otherwise, however, India joins France and Japan on the list of countries widely thought to have chosen the “wrong” film this year.

For those who want high-profile films in the race, however, there was good news from Hong Kong, as Wong Kar-wai’s martial arts epic “The Grandmaster” was announced as the country’s submission yesterday. The romantic, visually extravagant film, loosely based on the life story of famed Wing Chun martial artist Ip Man, should already be familiar to most voters, and not just because it opened in the US last month: the Academy hosted a screening of it in July, followed by a Q&A with Wong, as part of their summer tribute to kung fu cinema.

For this and other reasons, some may assume the film has a leg up with voters, but I’m not so sure. Reviews have stabilized since it opened the Berlin Film Festival to a very mixed reception in February, and it’s certainly Wong’s most mainstream film to date – but while some voters might respond to its grand spectacle, others will find it a hard film to penetrate, burdened with subplots and martial arts minutiae that still make it a somewhat esoteric experience. It doesn’t have quite the crossover immediacy of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or “Hero” (a winner and nominee in this category, respectively), but most agree that it’s not top-drawer Wong either. (Not that it’d help if it was the latter. Hong Kong have only submitted one of the auteur’s films before – 2000’s masterful “In the Mood for Love” – and it got nowhere in the race.) Still, as The Weinstein Company’s only horse in this race so far, it’ll have a lot of campaign muscle behind it.

A far more modest contender that I’m more confident in is Belgium’s submission, “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” a film I’ve regretfully managed to miss at three different festivals – and one that seems to reduce grown men to tears wherever it plays. Felix van Groeningen’s drama about a husband and wife, both Flemish bluegrass musicians, learning to cope with their young daughter’s terminal cancer was a huge domestic hit last year, before making its international debut at the Berlinale. There, it claimed the Audience Award in the festival’s Panorama section; it also won Best Actress and Best Screenplay at Tribeca in spring. I’ve been assured by several colleagues that the film inventively avoids the schmaltzy pitfalls of the disease-of-the-week genre – not that those would necessarily be a drawback in this race, of course. Sight unseen, I’m currently predicting a nomination; I’ll be able to make a more educated guess soon.

Another contender that has been winning hearts on the festival circuit is Canada’s just-announced submission, “Gabrielle.” Louise Archambault’s film is a reputedly gentle romantic drama about two developmentally disabled members of a special-needs choir who fall in love, despite parental opposition from one side; it won the Audience Award at the Locarno Film Festival last month, and also drew warm responses at Toronto a few weeks ago. As such, it’s another savvy submission for Canada, a country that currently has the Midas touch in this category. Their last three submissions – “War Witch,” “Monsieur Lazhar” and “Incendies” – all wound up nominated. Furthermore, only once in the last seven years have they failed to crack the nine-film shortlist. (The unlucky exception? Xavier Dolan’s “I Killed My Mother.”) Could “Gabrielle” get them a fourth consecutive nomination? You have to like its chances.

Guy Lodge is a South African-born critic and sometime screenwriter. In addition to his work at In Contention, he is a freelance contributor to Variety, Time Out, Empire and The Guardian. He lives well beyond his means in London.

The Lunchbox had Sony Picture classics ready to put their muscle behind it and a familiar star in Irfan Khan. Its snub has caused so much resentment in India that things will get uglier if The Good Road will fail to get shortlisted which I think it will surely fail to do!

There was a 19 member committee to select the Indian entry out of a pool of 22 movies and the jury unanimously selected The Good Road. Some see it as a rigged decision of some kind as a unanimous decision among 19 people sounds far fetched.

I am pretty sure it will now get a wide release in India now so I will see it. It had previously been limited released for 2 weeks only and nobody had heard about it then. The Lunchbox is in wide release now to staggering critical acclaim and great response from the audience.

Some critics who have seen The Good Road have written articles saying its a ludicrous selection. I saw the trailer and the production values are very second rate something that I am sure essentially renders it a non-competitor with the academy which is very high on production values. The Lunchbox is also the equivalent of an independent film in India, it is not a studio film. But The Good Road is even smaller than that, it is a micro-budget regional film.

I'm not sure the Brazil entry quite answers the question over Blue is the Warmest Color, because Neighboring Sounds was not on last year's Reminder List of Eligible Releases. But perhaps I'm nit-picking - I still can't think of anything in the Academy's rules that would preclude the Blue... scenario from playing out.

On a different note, I understand that Italy are deciding on their submission today. Can't wait to see what they pick. They have a seven-film shortlist: La grande bellezza, Miele, Salvo, Midway tra la vita e la morte, Razza bastarda, Viaggio sola and Viva la liberta. I guess La grande bellezza is the obvious frontrunner, just because of its high-profile Cannes release, but Italy have surprised before!

Spain's Academy announced that "15 Años y un Día" (15 Years and One Day) directed by Gracia Querejeta is Spain's submission. The film tells the story of the difficult relationships between a rebel teenager, his mother and his grand father... The main selling point to the Academy is the presence of Academy member Maribel Verdu (Y tu Mamá También, Pan's Labyrynth, Blancanieves) playing the mother.

It has no chance whatsoever. Looks and feels like a TV-movie or a series pilot. Poor screenplay with lots of forced developments, not-so-good acting (especially from the young actors) and a static and boring direction make this a pretty mediocre outing. It didn't even have great reviews in Spain, so it's hard to imagine the US critics and/or academics going for it. Not really an emotional rollercoaster, more like a nice and unimportant film.

Guy, Iran just released a list of 12 preliminary titles and one of them is Asghar Farhadi's The Past, so it's still possible for the film to compete in the category if they submit it.

Also, Peiman Moadi (from A Separation) has directed a film called Snow on the Pines that is on the list. Mani Haghighi's Modest Reception, which I know screened at some European festivals is in the running. It's a pretty strong crop actually. There are four or five films on there that are a lot better than The Past. Whether they'll submit that for the publicity is another question.

On another Foreign Oscar topic, Guy, have you seen "Metro Manila" by Sean Ellis?! It had a limited release here in Manila (probably for a week) last month... Too bad I wasn't able to catch it...How was it?